Saint John to dump snow in Reversing Falls, ‘let Fredericton deal with it’

Saint John — Under a state of emergency, Saint John officials have been scrambling to come up with cost-effective ways to get rid of the enormous amount of snow that is engulfing the once-beautiful New Brunswick city. Last week, the Port City saw upwards of 20 feet of snowfall, crippling the business sector, cancelling schools and making life miserable for each and every Saint John resident.

Mel Norton, the city’s mayor since 2012, has proposed a controversial plan of making the snow “somebody else’s problem.” Norton suggested the plan last night at an emergency council meeting, which was held via Skype since residents are still trapped in their snow-covered homes. The Manatee received details from one of the council member’s spouses who was concerned about the ramifications this initiative may have on her friends and family living in Fredericton.

“What they want to do is start dumping all the snow into the falls at high tide, and let it all run toward Fredericton, and just let them deal with it,” she disclosed under condition of anonymity. “Mel said that they have more money and better resources to deal with it up there and that he just doesn’t care about their problems.”

TheManatee spoke with Mayor Norton over the phone and questioned him about these allegations. “Look, we’re in a city-wide state of emergency here,” he said, the sound of dump-trucks and loaders echoing in the background. “We need to look after the fine people of Saint John, and not worry about the feelings of Frederictonians. What’s a little snow gonna hurt them? They’re all city workers up there anyway — they can just take a few more ‘personal days’ off from work.”

Fredericton Mayor Brad Woodside issued a statement on his MySpace page about the rumours of Norton’s plan. “If Mel Norton dares to send his problems to our great city, I will simply send them back,” the statement read, all in bold letters. “I’ll use every last one of our resources to pick up that snow, and truck every flake of it back to his doorstep. Bring it on, Mel.”

Residents of Saint John are praising their mayor’s bold efforts. “Mel’s my guy!” exclaimed Winston Murphy of the North End. “He’s got balls — that’s what I love about him. He won’t sit idly by and watch our city suffer while those fat-cats in Fredericton laugh at us.”

Sandra Levi of Fredericton said her heart goes out to those under duress in Saint John. “I’d do anything to help them. Well, not literally anything,” she said, backtracking. “I don’t want all their snow, I guess. Figuratively though, I’d do anything I could to help.”

The Manatee has reporters scouting the banks of the Reversing Falls in Saint John, ready to break the story if the proposed plan goes through.

interesting idea, however if they dump it at high tide it will go out through the harbour and cause problems with our own port traffic. Someone needs to learn how the reversing falls works before throwing stuff into it lol.

“As the bay tides begin to rise, they slow the course of the river and finally stop the river’s flow completely. This short period of complete calm is called slack tide. It is only at this time that boats are able to navigate the Falls. Shortly after this slack tide the bay tides become higher than the river level and slowly, at first, the river begins to flow upstream. As the bay tides continue to rise, the reverse flow gradually increases and the rapids begin to form, reaching their peak at high tide. The effect of this reversal is felt upstream as far as Fredericton, more than 80 miles inland. At this point the tidal waters are actually 14 ½ feet higher than the river.”

We have been dumping snow in the bay forever. It is a viable option to do at high tide (read – at the crest of high tide) as it would flow out into our NON FREEZING bay and get broken down.
Should we dump the entire cities snow fall in the river in one tide? Abdolutlu not but I’m sure there is some out there that can figure out the breakdown rate of the snow so that it melts in the bay, not just simply comes back in as a half formed iceberg.

Wouldn’t the snow melt by the time it reached Fredericton?? Even putting all the logistical issues aside, their Mayor might have a hard time sending every flake back to us.
Also, it seems to me that we weren’t supposed to be dumping our snow in the water anymore as the salt and other minerals mess with the ecology in the bay. I realize that there isn’t a lot of life in the Saint John harbor, but just hope that environmentalist groups don’t sink their teeth into this one.

I tried to walk in a balloon on top the reversing falls churning waters, fell into the ice cold water into a whirlpool of bubbles. The pull of the water kept pulling me under each time I tried to get a breath of air, under I would go. These pools are all over the place at reversing falls and would break up the snow, turn it all into water. The H in H2O would evaporate the overage anyway. No harm done.

I dont believe it is right to put that amount of snow in Revearsing Falls and let Fredericton deal with it, I have always been a believer of dealing with our own problems to the best we can and ask for help, this is not fair to the people of Fredericton

So ya instead of you know acting as proper Canadians and not trying to cause problems in our own province. He should realize that it wont just affect the Fredericton people but also in that area. Not all of them are fat cats most are members of our armed forces people who protect you and your country. I mean I do feel bad for people in Saint John but seriously how this person sounds is more of an ignorant prick. For that I do hope that this plan wont work.

If anybody had half a brain, the river is froze here so how would it affect Fredericton. Anyways nobody should be dumping snow in any river what about all the garbage like tim horton cups ciggerette butts cell phones bodies buried in the snow from Saint John, syringes (Poor Fish will need a meth program for them).

I’d like to thank the manatee for such great reporting… You always get local stories before anyone else and you always seem to be the only outlet to get an unbiased view of both sides of the story 😉 … Nice job keep up the great work!

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